Use physical activities to demonstrate sorting algorithms and help students build intuition about how these algorithms work.
Have students act as elements walking through a network to sort themselves to teach students about how Sorting Networks function.
Have students find the best method of sorting a group of unknown weights to teach them about sorting algorithms.
Use in-class clicker questions to identify students struggling at the beginning of the course so you can reach out to them.
Have pairs of students aim to achieve the same patterns on Battleship boards to teach them the precision necessary for algorithmic design.
Misconception: Students believe that in a primitive assignment, x = y could be the equivalent of y = x; they think that the computer science “=” sign is the same as the mathematical “=” sign.
Misconception: Students think that both the IF and the ELSE cases of a conditional are executed every single time a conditional runs.
Misconception: Students believe that reference pointers go both directions such that objects know what points to them.
Misconception: Students think that it’s possible to write methods that add attributes to a Java class.
Teach students to storyboard in Alice so they know a systematic process to follow when approaching challenging problems.
Misconception: Students think that when they create a new variable within a function, that function will automatically return that variable’s value when executed.